


Combing Stars

by Kiiyoshi



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Asexual Character, M/M, Talking Animals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2016-01-31
Packaged: 2018-05-17 08:04:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5860777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiiyoshi/pseuds/Kiiyoshi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kuroko dreams of a boy and humors the talking snake he finds half-buried in an abandoned sandbox.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Combing Stars

“What would you want?” 

“Stay with me for a night,” he proposes with a smile, scales glimmering. From afar, Kuroko had mistaken him for a chain of dandelions, left behind by a child who had grown bored with weaving stems.

He traces shapes into the sand then, balancing his weight on the two by four that was split down the middle. Kuroko knew he couldn’t, and he’d rather go home, but he didn’t speak for a moment as if to give the impression that he was considering.

“No,” he finally says. “I’m not as free as you are, Kise-kun.”

The serpent protests and a shadow passes over them both as Kuroko feels his presence leaning against him. Obtrusive, insistent, Kise was never one for shyness or lukewarm tendencies, and Kuroko mourned the day he had humored the snake he found coiled in the sand.

“The stars are brighter here, the moon too! No one else will be around, and I want to show you it—“

“I can see those things well enough from my bedroom window, Kise-kun.” Kuroko doesn’t mean to sound so curt, but any sign of uncertainty came across as an invitation to insist, and Kuroko was never one to meet thoughtless persistence with patience.

“Isn’t it different, though? Spending the night with someone else?”

“It’s not,” Kuroko says, standing up and dusting the sand that had gathered in the folds of his clothes. “I’ll come by again tomorrow. Thank you for having me.”

 

\- - - -

 

Kuroko dreams of a boy his age, hand clutching a vividly yellow dandelion as if his golden hair wasn’t indicative enough. He smiles as brightly as the sun when their eyes meet, and Kuroko tells him he likes him better coiled in his lap.

 

\- - - -

 

“I’m telling you it’s different,” the serpent sighs, tongue dancing over his finger tips as Kuroko watches glassy lids slide over his eyes. “When it’s dark, it’s always too cold, and it feels like cement’s dragging along in my veins.”

“It’s unfortunate,” Kuroko agrees, weight resting against his knees as he dusts the sand off those golden scales. White would mean fortune and wealth, youth and rebirth, but not much stood for the golden sort. “Perhaps you could find yourself a nice lamp to sleep on top of, Kise-kun.”

“I’ll be snatched up,” he wails, and Kuroko regrets teasing him, not out of guilt, but fear that some passerby might ask about the talking snake. “I’ll be snatched up and carried _away_ , Kurokocchi!”

Kuroko almost smiles, patting his tiny, scaled head. “I’m sure you could feed many small mouths. At home, we keep a jar of snake liquor—“

Another wail as Kise shoots beneath the sand. Kuroko pulls him out again, dusting him off once more with the slightest hint of remorse. Perhaps he had went too far just then, even he having trouble looking at the curled-up inhabitant in years-old alcohol.

“I wouldn’t jar you,” Kuroko promises, as if pickling the snake for some devilish fare had seriously been on his list of considerations. “Grilling does more justice for the meat, I think—“

Kise refuses to come out the second time, even as Kuroko tugs.

 

\- - - -

 

He’s cold and stiff when Kuroko visits in the morning, but like magic, the serpent uncoils and slides along his lap, greeting him with a sleepy flicker of the tongue.

“You’re so warm,” he whispers, making home in his coat pocket. “Good night!”

“No,” Kuroko replies, even when he makes no effort to pull him back out. “I’ll be gone in the afternoon. I came by to tell you, but you’re staying here.”

When he wraps tighter around the hand tucked into his pocket, Kuroko could almost feel sorry for him. Perhaps it was the truth that snakes never knew the dread of nightfall, having spent their entire lives witnessing the sunrise day after day. They would never know what it was like, to house a flame within one’s body, to move and dance and burn even when the sun had long set.

But Kise remembers, and perhaps that is why he continues to ask.

“...It’s the earliest, I’ve been up you know,” Kise murmurs, and it’s a strange sensation, to feel the vibrations run along the length of something that should never be able to talk. “I’d like to see the stars and moon again, Kurokocchi.”

Perhaps that was another thing, to rise and fall with the sun when you once had the freedom to rest as you pleased.

And Kuroko hates to leave him amidst his thawing, gingerly taking him out to place on a patch of sunlight. “I’ll see you tonight then, Kise-kun."

He perks and perhaps it was the drawl of a sleep-laden voice that had pulled Kuroko to his whims, the pity for a cold grip that had undoubtedly been warm once upon a time. Going through with his promise will be one thing, but a promise was a promise, and it’s too late to take anything back when Kise’s face splits into a wide-mouthed grin.

 

\- - - -

 

“You misled me.” Even as he says so, he takes a seat next to the boy his age, placing the blanket he had brought between them for a place they could rest their hands.

“Kurokocchi,” he says, and his eyes are much brighter when they gaze at him through the screen of dark lashes. “I didn’t lie when I said I wanted to see the moon and stars again.”

“I like you better curled up in the sand,” Kuroko replies. Even now he doesn’t ask about the nickname, one the other had adopted the moment he told him his real one, nor does he point out the likelihood he was after more than just what hung in the sky.

And it’s hard meeting his eyes when he’s no longer a serpent, and perhaps his dreams were the same—even then he had found himself fixated on the flower in his hands, petals wilting from being clutched in warm fingers for too long.

But Kise’s fingers are cold when they thread through his, pulling him closer until Kuroko looks up at the face that is, quite literally, the one of his dreams. Kise isn’t unpleasant to look at, very much the opposite, but there was such a raw honesty in those depths that shook even him, bringing up thoughts that Kuroko wants nothing more than to swallow back down.

“Could you love me?”

Kuroko lowers his gaze, running a thumb over the back of his hand as he muses the lack of scales in the back of his mind. He asks him as if Kuroko hated him, as if anything can change simply because he’s no longer the talking snake Kuroko had found in the forgotten sandbox.

“I can’t love, Kise-kun.”

And Kuroko expects him to take him by the shoulders, to grow angry almost, to accuse him of wasting his time when he could’ve left this box to find someone else to help reignite that flame.

But Kise only nudges his head against his arm, wrapping his own around his middle in an embrace that pleads for more than what Kuroko could comprehend. “Please,” he murmurs into his sleeve. “It has to be you. I’d never hurt you, Kurokocchi. Whatever happened before, I won’t—“

“I’m not broken,” he says, and his words are a sigh as fingers play with the ends of yellow locks. “But you’re asking me for something I can’t give.”

It would be a lie to say he felt nothing as Kise curled in his lap, hands loosely grasping the hem of his shirt as Kuroko turned his gaze towards the heavens. As if a snake could care any less for things like the stars and moon, or even the sun. As if Kuroko would understand what it was like, to place the trust of one’s own being in another, to ache enough to lay yourself bare for someone else.

He wonders then if Kise made the wrong decision, but he doesn’t push him off, and nor does Kise scorn him for what he’s done. Perhaps this is their understanding then, the serpent boy lulled to sleep as dew hangs from his lashes, Kuroko pulling the fleece around them both as the night goes on.

 

\- - - -

 

Kuroko wakes up to Kise coiled neatly on his belly, head tucked away. His clothes are damp, the morning as cheery as his bones are stiff. He’ll probably come down with a cold by the end of the day, and he considers dumping Kise back into the sand and have him deal with his resulting absence, but he remembers the night, and the tears Kise had wished to forget.

It was a little sad to think about, that he wasn’t even allowed to forget what it was like, being human again after the sun sets. Kise had wanted to show him, to share his last secret, and Kuroko wonders why he hasn’t left by now, to find someone else to give him a reason that he should never forget.

So Kuroko carries him back instead, hiding those stiff coils in the folds of his blanket as he makes the trip home.

He couldn’t love, at least not in the way others would want of him. He had seen anger, heartbreak, a dull guilt as he could only greet anguished tears with a cool sympathy. He was used to that, and yet, those eyes had been needlessly warm, wanting and greedy, yet finding joy in every glance Kuroko would spare him even if he were angry. No gesture of his went wasted, the tenderness of his fingers gliding along the surface of his scales treasured, words shared between them tucked away like diary pages no matter how mundane or dull.

As overbearing and incessantly troublesome he could be, Kuroko never grew bored of him either. Kuroko had his home, and Kise the world, yet he had constrained himself to the forgotten sandbox Kuroko had stumbled upon based on a whim.

Kuroko thinks of the number of nights the blond-haired boy of his dreams spent alone, smiling only when their gazes found one another. With legs and arms and hands, and a face that could light up the overgrown park, Kise could’ve won the affections of someone worthier. Maybe not worthier, but someone much more promising.

Yet even as capricious as snakes could be, he stayed and waited even as the cold seeped into his bones, not for the sun to rise, but perhaps for the boy with blue eyes to appear, sometimes empty-handed, sometimes not.

Kuroko doesn’t humor himself with a knowing smile, quietly greeting the companion he loved, yet didn’t, as he slides up his arm and around his neck.

“Good morning, Kise-kun.”

 

\- - - -

 

When they share a bed that night, hand nestled in the other’s, Kuroko stares at the ceiling. He had sworn him to silence lest his parents investigate, and Kuroko had threatened to dump him back outside as he proclaimed his utter excitement at being able to share a _bed_. Shushed at every opportunity, it wasn’t long before he fell asleep, and Kuroko finds a strange sort of comfort in the soft rhythm of his breath.

This was fine, he thinks, grasp tightening slightly when Kise twitches in his sleep. Childlike and demanding, yet easy to please and grateful for even the smallest of gestures.

Perhaps that was one thing he could not give, but only one thing amongst many other things they did share as they continued to lie side by side.

 

\- - - -

 

_“Could you love me?” Kise asks him again as his eyelids grow heavy. Kuroko traces the ridge of his knuckles, reaching out to cup the side of his face when he considers the question beneath a different light, but the other shakes his head before he can speak._

_“...I think I wouldn’t mind if you can’t,” he amends softly, smiling as their hands joined together. “I won’t mind being a snake forever, since it was because I was a snake that we met, Kurokocchi.”_

_“I thought you were flowers,” Kuroko tells him, and Kise laughs._

_And it’s fine, he knows now, if things remained as they were like this._


End file.
